


an hourglass, running

by penscritch



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Spoilers, but I swear there's a happy ending, fenhawke - Freeform, some initial angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-14 00:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5722192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penscritch/pseuds/penscritch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris receives a letter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an hourglass, running

**Author's Note:**

> So I read [this](http://remington-zero.tumblr.com/post/111921017815/i-wish-youd-never-taught-me-how-to-read) comic and it made me very sad. T^T
> 
> This is my attempt at a fix-it. Beware crack.

Hawke has been gone for months and it’s all Fenris can do not to chase him down. Only, he promised not to follow him and there was the news about the red lyrium.

Hawke said _please_.

So it’s with a small amount of pleasure that he receives Varric’s letter. Varric has been updating him on Hawke’s whereabouts though Hawke has been sending effusive messages to him on his own, each more embarrassing than the last. Some of it makes him smile – Hawke, arguing with Varric and forgetting his height until he crashed into the lintel of a nameless bar. (Varric recounted the incident – Hawke only mentioned he’d accidentally hit his head and that he’d wished Fenris were there to kiss it better) Hawke, trying some disastrous new spell that came into his head and saying perfectly off-hand _I miss the way you look at me when you think I’m being an idiot_. Hawke, who had been reduced to a simple _I love you_ in the latest letter.

It makes Fenris unaccountably nervous. He tries to remind himself to have faith. Hawke promised he’d come back.

He sits down in his armchair and opens the letter. He can read now, but it’s slow. He makes certain of every word. Let’s see…

It’s the only thing that makes him believe what he’s reading.

He can’t stop himself from standing, uselessly, and reaching out –

To what?

The red favor on his wrist is brilliant and blurry. He slumps down in his seat, presses the heels of his hands into his eyes as if it would help.

_Oh, Hawke. Why did you go where I can’t follow?_

 

* * *

 

Fenris joins Varric.

He works with them, but he’ll never be one of them. He gave away too much of himself and he spends what’s left of him eradicating the darkspawn. Corypheus lights a burning desire for vengeance in him.

Must everything he loves be destroyed by magisters?

Fenris is bitterly, viciously glad when Corypheus discards his cards and stands before them in his corrupted arrogance, attacking one last time to end the ‘pests’ he calls them.

Even if all seems lost.

Fenris wants to stab his greatsword in his chest, reach in a ghostly hand and tear out what is left of his disgusting Tevinter heart. He’ll count it an effort well spent, even if it’s the last ten minutes of his life.

Then the dragon arrives.

“Andraste’s _fucking_ ti—“ Varric begins.

“That’s not Flemeth!” says Carver.

“Sodding _well seen_ , little Hawke, tell me something new,” gripes Varric, looking like he wants to clutch Bianca like a stuffed toy.

“We’re all gonna die!” yells a lowly foot soldier, amidst a cacophony of panicked screaming.

Then it sets Corypheus on fire.

The Inquisition watches, dumbfounded, when Corypheus starts shrieking as the dragon tears through the pitifully inadequate arcane shield to rake deep gashes across his Blighted body. Corypheus hurls spell after spell, abomination after abomination, but they all bounce off the scales uselessly. A shimmer of gold makes Fenris startle.

Fenris doesn’t know how, but the dragon is using magic. He’s seen that shade on an arcane shield before. But the creator he knows is dead.

It doesn’t take long for Corypheus to die. He cries out like a child when his ribs break under the dragon’s claws, when he is crushed and torn in two and incinerated further by the following blast of fire. Across the battlefield, his puppets fall. The mastermind is dead.

No one knows what to do.

Then the dragon cranes its head around and Fenris stares into surprisingly light eyes. They’re brown but look more like gold. Like the added sheen on the arcane shields he cast.

He steps forward.

“Broody,” starts Varric, but he’s interrupted again.

“…Hawke?” Fenris says.

The dragon looks pleased and apologetic all at once. Fenris has no idea how a high dragon can manage to look like a mabari that had been caught chewing up his master’s slippers, but he (or she? he thinks helplessly. Weren’t high dragons female?) manages.

He runs forward.

“Broody!” he hears Varric call faintly, but it doesn’t matter. Hawke lowers his head, lets Fenris cling to him and swear at him vociferously, tearfully. It doesn’t matter if he’s a dragon. He’s just glad he’s back.

The croon rumbling beneath his hands is worried and comforting all at once. Warm dragon surrounds him, nuzzling.

Then he draws back.

“What?” Fenris says, reaching, “No—“

There is a flash of fire, so bright he has to bring his hands to his face and stagger back. But a figure coalesces from the flames, and it’s Hawke.

“Now we can hug properly,” he says, holding out his arms, and Fenris doesn’t waste any time getting into them. He’s never letting go.

 

* * *

 

Hawke’s arm is around his waist and Fenris is glaring at anyone who even looks like they’re thinking about approaching.

The way Hawke holds onto him and his gaze keeps returning, full of wonder, makes him think he feels the same way.

“So let me get this straight,” Varric says. “You fought Nightmare, were losing, and thought ‘Hey, what if I turn into a dragon?’”

“Pretty much,” Hawke says.

“ARGH.” Varric throws his hands up in the air.

“Flemeth is a genius,” Hawke continues, warming up to the subject. “I never thought turning into a dragon was a possibility until I saw her do it. Twice.”

“How did you succeed?” asks Dorian, excited. Fenris is slightly possessive of Hawke’s attention these days but reminds himself of Hawke’s presence at his side and is satisfied. He’s not going to gut the Tevinter mage in a fit of pique, even if he has been circling around Hawke for a few days now.

“Well, I…” Hawke makes a couple of twisty and incomprehensible hand motions. It’s made even more confusing by the way he seems to be explaining something that requires two hands, and Hawke refuses to remove the hand attached to Fenris. “And then I remembered that Flemeth uses fire a lot.”

“…I see…” Dorian looks impressed, but not at all enlightened.

“It’s all in the fire,” Hawke concludes.

“Right.”

“We’ll be honored to have you among us,” the Inquisitor says.

“About that,” Hawke says. “I’m retiring. I’m going to spend the rest of my life making Fenris happy. I have a lot of groveling to do for what I made him go through while I was gone.”

Fenris can’t help the smile creeping up. He lets it bloom when Hawke stares at him, entranced.

Varric coughs.

“That’s it, really.” Hawke shrugs, breaking his gaze with Fenris to look back towards the Inquisitor.

The smile on her face is sad and knowing. There were rumors about her and some elven mage named Solas and he is conspicuously absent from Skyhold.

“I understand. But would you consider a teaching position? We need experienced instructors as well. Most of our soldiers don’t know which end of the sword they ought to be sticking towards the enemy and our mages are worse. They’re all glass cannons.”

Hawke laughs.

“If it’s one thing I’m known for, it’s not staying in the back.”

He looks to Fenris. He’s waiting for his decision, and suddenly Fenris is immeasurably glad of having this man in his life.

“We aren’t getting any younger,” Fenris observes drily, watching the extra crinkle at the corner of his eyes when he smiles and the gray in Hawke’s hair. It wasn’t there before he’d gone into the Fade. “We’ll see how it works out.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know Corypheus got thrown into the Fade but logically, he’s the sort of guy who’ll weasel his way out eventually. Hence his attack.
> 
> I also headcanon a Hawke who likes to experiment with magic. He’s not an old-as-dirt god or an ancient Tevinter magister, but he has more than a few tricks up his sleeve. Apostates in general are more creative than your stick-in-the-mud Circle mages. (AKA, this is why I believe Hawke’s skill tree is a lot more comprehensive than Anders’ or Merrill’s in DA:II)
> 
>  _Edit:_ Corrected "mana shield" to "arcane shield." I've been playing too many generic RPGs, ahaha. XD


End file.
